


A Strong Woman

by Mary_West



Category: The Secret Garden - All Media Types, The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Genre: Gen, M/M, Prison, Suffragettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27507400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_West/pseuds/Mary_West
Summary: Mary Lennox has decided that some people have power.And some have more than others.So she's taking it back.She joined the Suffragette Movement.
Relationships: Colin Craven/Dickon Sowerby
Comments: 18
Kudos: 42
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	A Strong Woman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lmizutani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmizutani/gifts).



> With "The Secret Garden" set at the end of the 1800s, Mary and Colin, who were ten, could be twenty-one in 1908. And I cannot think of a better woman to help run the country than Susan Sowerby. 
> 
> Also, for all that Martha was a bit of a bird-brain in the book, she was only fourteen, so no wonder. By twenty-five, I'm sure she'd be different.

"Lennox? You've got a visitor." The prison wardress at the door scowled at Mary, who levered herself off the uncomfortable cot and attempted to get to her feet. She still had some bruises from the arrest three days before, although they were healing rapidly. Brushing down the front of her rough cotton pinafore, she set her head high and walked through the door, following where the wardress indicated to a section of the prison Mary had never been in.

She'd been processed in the police station, having been strip-searched and photographed with the others from her group, then charged by the magistrate for _Disturbing the Peace, Obstructing the Police_ and _Damage to police equipment_. Then she and the others were bundled into a Black Maria, driven to Holloway, issued with standard prison dress and dispatched to their cells. At least for now they were in individual cells, although Mary thought that might be intended to break their spirits more than give them a rest.

She didn't mind. It was worth throwing that pot of paint over the constable.

She could lie on the cot, close her eyes and remember the wind over the moors and the singing of the thrushes at Misselthwaite.

The last door led to a room with a large table in the middle. At one end was a chair, obviously waiting for her. At the other …

"Colin!"

"Mary. Thank goodness you're all right." He stood up as she came in, and would have embraced her, except for the stern shake of the wardress's head.

"Begging your pardon, young sir, but there's to be no touching. If you need to pass anything to the prisoner, place it on the table in front of you and I shall search it then pass it on. Otherwise I shall be there." She pointed to a glass window at the side. "I will be able to see you, but not hear anything."

"Very well." Colin scowled, reminding Mary of the early days when he had been so angry. She smiled in spite of herself, and sat down, trying to keep her head up and her carriage stately. Mrs Medlock would have been proud.

"Are you all right, Mary? They haven't been rough with you or anything?" He looked so worried, and leaned forwards towards her, although they were still separated by five feet of His Majesty's Prison table.

"I am well." She kept the aloof look although she was having trouble not grinning. "I have a room, meals, privacy. It could be so very much worse." And she wasn't one of the hunger strikers. She thought they might have been taken to a different section, but she knew they were resisting. And that it wasn't pleasant. But she knew nothing more than that.

"I've arranged with Dr Craven to have you out – he'll be posting the bond then coming here to collect you. Only …"

"Only what, Colin?"

"Only you have to promise not to do this any more."

"Do what?" She knew what he meant, and was delighting in making him say it. She always had had the upper hand, even when they were children. When he'd spoken the words in the garden and ordered her around like a young Rajah, she just let him do it. But when she didn't want to any more, she could always bend him to her will.

"This. This _votes_ thing. It's not something a young lady should be doing." Colin was becoming more agitated, and slammed his palm on the table. Mary watched him, sure that he was in the wrong role. He shouldn't be a wealthy landowner in Yorkshire with six hundred years of the family behind him. He should be instead a _Nabob_ in a distant Indian province, accepting the offerings of the locals with a disdainful wave of his soft white hand. Just as she had been as a child.

She hated who she had been.

"Colin, do _you_ vote?"

"Well, yes. Of course." He sat up straighter, calming a little at last. "It's my duty as an Englishman to cast my vote."

"Why?"

"Because the sovereign may well _reign_ over us, Mary, but he does not _rule_. And frankly," he leaned forward and spoke a little quieter, "for all that Edward is our King, I don't think he does a very good job of it."

"So who rules?" She had him like a trout in one of the streams on the moor, sniffing at the fly that lay on the surface of the water. "Who decides the policies, makes the laws, looks over the expenditure and disburses the payments?"

"Parliament, of course." Colin's face was a study in puzzlement. "The representatives of the people."

"No." Mary's voice was cold, hard and implacable. "How can they represent me when I cannot choose them? What right have they to claim they have my interests at heart when I am not permitted to give them a mandate through voting? I refuse to acknowledge the validity of our local elected representative when I had no say in whether or not he _should_ have been elected."

"Mary …" Colin's voice was terse, a warning, but she ignored it.

"He has no right to declare himself our Member of Parliament until he has been through a properly-run electoral campaign where every adult – not just every man – has had a chance to make a decision on the point. In fact, it's _not_ every man, is it, Colin?"

Colin had the decency to look uneasy as his cousin continued.

"Every _eligible_ man over the age of twenty-one who owns land or pays rent of ten pounds or more. You're a hypocrite, Colin. None of the male staff at Misselthwaite Manor may vote, and neither can Dickon. He might be responsible for the rent for the cottage, and a suitable age, but the rent there only being five pounds four shillings a year, neither he nor his brothers are allowed to vote."

That got his attention. "Then why aren't you protesting for _his_ sake, Mary? I would have thought that as he's _your_ special friend, you'd be protesting for his voting rights."

She felt her shoulders sag, and shook her head sadly. "You don't understand, do you, Colin? Just because it isn't fair on him doesn't mean I should put my own struggle aside. There are men _and_ women fighting for the right to vote, and those in power do not give up their power so easily. We must work together to give us all the voice." Then something he said sank in. " _Special_ friend?"

"Don't try and deny it. I know what you've been up to."

"Colin?"

He half-turned away from her, unable to meet her eyes. "The last time you were up at the Manor, you were sneaking out with Martha at all hours, heading up to the Sowerby cottage. A young woman of good breeding … I can't believe you'd do this to the family. To _me_."

That was enough for her. She laughed so loudly that there was a scraping noise from beyond the observation window, and she saw that the wardress was startled and had jumped to her feet. It didn't matter. Mary put her head in her hands, the laughter both amused and bitter.

"Oh Colin, Colin, you silly silly _boy_!"

"I'm twenty-one, as you well know." He sat up straighter, presumably to give the impression of greater age and maturity, and Mary laughed even louder.

"Colin? I know."

"Of course you know how old I am." He scowled.

"No, not that. About you."

"What about me?"

Her smile became suddenly sweet and soft. "About you and Dickon."

He froze, then turned and looked in terror at the observation window. The wardress had returned to her seat, and from the lack of reaction, obviously couldn't hear them. With wide fearful eyes, Colin turned back to Mary.

"No."

"Oh yes." She put her fingers into birdbeaks and had them kiss each other. "I saw you two last month, in the garden. You were leaning against the tree, and Dickon came up to you and brushed the hair out of your eyes. And then you kissed." She put her hands down, and tried to look serious. "And from the ease with which you did, I think you two have been kissing for a long time now. You love him, don't you?"

"A proper young lady would not speak of such things." He was really angry now, the fury in his tone matched by the set of his shoulders – and hiding the fear she knew he would have.

"And a proper young lady would not be charged with numerous crimes and serving at His Majesty's Pleasure in Holloway. But it's all right. I know what he means to you." Mary nodded sagely. "And I won't tell anyone. Although it's probably a good thing your father isn't around to find out."

"But then I don't understand."

" _What_ don't you understand, Colin?"

"If you weren't sneaking out to be with Dickon, why _were_ you going to the Sowerby cottage in the middle of the night?" His face was complete puzzlement, and she laughed again.

"I'm not the only woman who wants the power of choosing her own representative. Marth and Mrs Sowerby are two of the staunchest Suffragettes in the county! They've been organising the marches, writing letters, collecting supporters … if it wasn't for them, the North would stay in the Victorian era!"

"You're going to their cottage to lead them astray? Oh Mary."

"No, Colin, you _idiot_! I go to their cottage to _follow_ them!"

"Don't be silly, Mary. What would an ignorant country woman and her bird-brained daughter know about such matters?" Colin's face was back to _Rajah_ , and Mary suddenly tired of her game.

"The answer is no."

"What answer?"

"When you told me that you and your father's cousin would get me out of here, but only if I stopped being a suffragette? No."

"No, you don't want us to get you out?"

"No, I won't stop doing this." Mary stood up, and she saw the shadowy figure of the wardress coming out of the observation room. "Thank you for coming to see me, Colin, but I _cannot_ stop until Britain's women – all of them, no matter their income or property – are eligible to vote. I will let you know when they release me."

She nodded at the wardress, who led her from the room and back to the cell where she could be at Misselthwaite in her thoughts, if not her body.

She could wait.


End file.
